The Tamil Poets and Poetry from Medieval Religious to Social Modern Literature

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This book examines how the Tamil poets gradually began to turn their attention away from praising kings, chieftains, ruling elites besides on gods and goddesses, It explores how the bards composed ulaa, pillaithamizh, maalai, sathagam, agaval, kalampagam, kovai and toothu poetry in the early modern age. The poets concentrated on the country's ordinary people. New genres like virali vidu thoothu emerged and laid social focus on depicting the lives of the Brahmins, dancers and prostitutes. Puranams and thalapuranams came to grow into prominence and popularity by encouraging the pilgrims. The study also examines how Tamil Christian poetical religious works composed saw the light of printing. They reported the untouchability, superstitions, bribe and corruption and other social evils present in Tamil society. This volume covering wide ranging aspects is an invaluable guide for understanding the radical and manifold changes in the Tamil poetical scene after the advent of the Europeans and beyond.

S. Jeyaseela Stephen is Directeur, Institut pour études Indo-Européennes. He was Professor of Maritime History (2001-13) at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan. He has authored numerous books on the maritime history of early modern India including The Coromandel Coast and its Hinterland: Economy, Society and Political System, 1500-1600 (1997); Expanding Portuguese Empire and the Tamil Economy, Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries (2009); Oceanscapes: Tamil Textiles in the Early Modern World (2014); A Meeting of the Minds: European and Tamil Encounters in Modern Sciences, 1507-1857 (2016); Tranquebar in Global History, 1620-1801: The Coromandel Coast and Europe in a World Network System (2020); and From European Dwelling Settlements to Global Cities: Ports of the Tamil Coast and the Colonial Modernity (2021). His books have been translated into Chinese, Danish, German and Tamil. He is the recipient of the 'Best Book Prize of the Year 1999' from the Government of Tamil Nadu.

Writing this book has been a challenging and rewarding task for me and it would not have been possible without the assistance and help of various repositories. A number of people around the world had ploughed through the earlier versions of my text, making critical suggestions and enhancing my skills. The list is too lengthy and so in general I extend my warm thanks to all of them.